


Suspicion and Intent

by Owlship



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Assassins & Hitmen, Fights, Gen, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Surveillance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-14 14:10:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14771150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owlship/pseuds/Owlship
Summary: It doesn’t take Max too long to come to the conclusion that something is wrong about the job.





	Suspicion and Intent

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [on tumblr](http://v8roadworrier.tumblr.com/post/144635120146/for-the-au-meme-please-could-you-take-a-run-at)!

It doesn't take Max too long to come to the conclusion that something is wrong about the job. The pay is exorbitant and information is thin- Moore had given him only a name for the target that screamed 'fake' as much as Moore's own 'Immortan' alias, a few photographs, and a last-known-address in addition to his sob story of being betrayed by this woman he now wants dead.

Max isn't too picky when it comes to jobs, really. He's killed people who probably deserved to live and not lost much sleep over it, retrieved things that hadn't been stolen in the first place, tracked down people who might have been better off hidden. It's the discrepancy between story and reality here that's setting off his alarms- he's been led to believe this 'Furiosa' woman is some sort of ruthless saboteur, stealing a huge chunk of assets in addition to killing someone dear to Moore, that she'd laughed while watching it burn.

Instead the woman he's tracked to a pay-by-the-hour motel room looks utterly shell-shocked in the glimpses he can get through the gaps in the room's crappy broken blinds, like she's just come off a tour of duty in some hellhole somewhere. She'd been curled up in the far corner of the grimy room the entire first day and hadn't moved for hours, staring blankly off into space without even turning on a lamp until it got too dark for Max to see anything in the tiny room.

When she finally leaves the next day he follows her. She's wearing the same clothes as the day before (the same clothes from the photographs of the night she ripped off Moore), doesn't look as if she's slept at all, slowing her brisk pace only to get coffee off some street cart. Max keeps his distance awkwardly, better at tailing from a car than on foot, but for as vigilant as she seems he sneaks past her radar.

Of all the places for her to stop at on her winding route, he wouldn't have picked a women's shelter. She disappears inside easily but it's not really a place he'd be welcome into, his presence with no good explanation handy drawing more attention than it's worth, so he instead makes for the building across the way, offices of some sort. He doubts he's the first man to try and stake out the shelter, but even so security is lax enough that it's pretty easy to slip up to the roof where he's got a decent enough view.

What he can't figure out is why she's there. It would be a better deal to stay in that shitty motel room than a place like a shelter, especially if she has as much valuables to unload on the black market as Moore had made it sound like she does. Max watches the building without really expecting to see anything, and is surprised when one of the heavy doors open hours later to disgorge Furiosa and two more women, hovering close to the building like they're afraid to leave its shadow but still wanting to talk with her.

The background file he had for her was so thin that these women could be anyone- relatives, strangers she'd met a week ago, former associates of Moore's. They talk for a few minutes more and then hug, Furiosa stiff and uncomfortable even to his distant eyes, but don't seem to pass anything like papers or drugs or whatever-it-was that she'd supposedly stolen from Moore between them. She's not even carrying a bag of any sort, so either the hand-off fits in her pockets or she really is there for some other reason entirely. The two women go back inside the shelter doors and Furiosa leans against the wall of the building for a long moment, real and artificial hands both covering her face from sight, before pivoting and starting to retrace the steps she'd taken that morning.

Asking too many questions in Max's line of work is not something that's encouraged. Being thorough is one thing, but he already has the information he needs to kill her as contracted.

All of it's really just not adding up though and that prompts him to start digging, burner phone at his ear as he grunts his way through an exchange with one of the few contacts he bothers keeping, eyes fixed on the gaps in the blinds where he can see Furiosa lying on the pay-by-the-hour motel bed, seemingly asleep on top of the covers, shoes still laced onto her feet.

By the time three days have passed since he started tailing her, he has a much clearer picture of what's going on. There's a reason he tries to turn down jobs for the various heavy-hitting gangs in the area, no matter how steady the work is considering how many people they tend to need disposed of.

He should walk the fuck away from this before word gets back to Moore that he's cottoned on to the truth, before there's a target on his own back. There's no guarantee that he's the only person hired to take out Furiosa, not if the rumors are true and the "assets" she'd stolen were more in the line of human beings than drugs. He can't think of another reason for her to be risking staying so close to Moore's territory and visiting that women's shelter every day, not if it doesn't add up to those girls being the reason there's a price on her head.

Instead of getting in his car and heading somewhere away from the city and Moore's impending wrath because it is really not his fucking problem, Max walks to the motel next door and knocks on the door.

There's nothing but silence, though he knows she's inside. He knocks again, unsure why he isn't leaving- he could have just written a note and slipped it under the door if he wanted to let her know there was a bounty on her, kept himself entirely out of the equation.

"The sign says ‘do not disturb'," Furiosa calls out, voice carrying easily through the thin wood.

"Police," Max replies, the once-truth no longer tasting as bitter on his tongue as it used to, already a lie he's well rehearsed in. It's the surest way of flushing someone out that he knows, far better than playing confused deliveryman who's just _sure_ there was an order placed for this room. The smart ones play along like there's nothing wrong and let him in the door, the dumb ones try to run- and here there's only the door and single window for possible exits.

There's a long pause where he's sure she's weighing her options, deciding what she thinks he knows, how this is going to shake out. It wouldn't surprise him any to learn that Moore has the local police in his pocket, though he hadn't looked into it.

"What's this about, officer?" she says with false pleasantness as the door creaks open, illuminating her suspicious face with morning sunlight. Up close she looks even less as if she's managed to actually sleep, skin sallow and the hollows under her eyes dark, clothes even now still unchanged.

"Joe Moore," Max says as he pushes through the doorway into the dingy room like he has any right to it, like the badge he has clipped inside his jacket isn't some counterfeit he bought a few years back but the real deal still.

Furiosa stiffens at the name, face shuttering down tight, stance shifting like she's getting ready to try running though he clicks the door shut behind him to prevent just that. "What about him?" she asks carefully, eyes scanning the door, the window, the loose-tiled ceiling.

"He sent me-" he starts to say, an opening tact he regrets immediately, even before she lunges at him to attack without hesitation, forgoing the option of bolting. He'd wanted to avoid a fight but, fuck. She's wild and vicious, clearly used to defending herself, the flimsy motel furniture barely standing up to the way she's throwing her weight around as he tries to get a hold on her. That prosthetic hand isn't plastic like he'd supposed but metal, heavy and cold and leaving what's sure are going to be some spectacular bruises. He'd be tempted to say there's a grace to her brutal movements if it wasn't for how obviously exhausted she is, straining and sloppy and desperate.

He has a gun at his side, of course, though he'd had no plans to use it- Furiosa scrabbles for it as soon as she realizes it's there and doesn't look like she'd hesitate to use it on him, supposed cop or no. The magazine goes one way as he hastily ejects it and the gun goes another, and her lunge to grab it back is the opening Max needs to wrestle her into a pinning hold, weight sitting heavily on her hips and her arms wrenched back.

"Stop," he grunts out as she keeps thrashing, "Hey, hey. Stop."

She snarls out something in reply and he grits his teeth, but it wasn't like he could just back out now.

"‘m not gonna kill you," Max says, "And I'm not taking you in."

Furiosa finally slows her struggling at that and stares at him with the eye not pressed against the grungy motel carpeting in blatant suspicion and disbelief.

"Joe sent you to kill me," she says, not a question.

Max grunts an affirmative, "He paid a lot for your head. Too much." He doesn't dare let up his hold on her but he does relax her arms to a less painful position, is gratified when she doesn't immediately start twisting to wrench herself free. "Found what he was covering up."

She doesn't say anything to that, just takes deep steady breaths he can feel under his hands. Her glare doesn't diminish at all.

"I know why you got out," he says, trying to remember why this had seemed like a better idea than running and leaving the trash behind. "He's not- We could do something about him."

"Sure," Furiosa says in a tone that is in no way sincere, "Gonna let me up?"

Max growls in frustration, but resists the urge to tighten his grip- it won't do a lick of good, putting him into her head as more of a threat. "He needs to be taken down," he tries. There's a lot of bad Max has done, and a lot of bad he's willing to let slide, but the things Moore's up to barely count as human.

"I said okay," she says, and tugs pointedly at her trapped arms.

He really doesn't think she has any intention of doing anything but fighting some more or running, but if she knows what Moore's about and doesn't want to help Max take him down then fine, he'll leave her be. She looks like she could use some peace anyway. He takes his weight off cautiously and she doesn't spring back up to attack again, only sits up and prods gingerly at a blossoming bruise on her cheek, watching him suspiciously as he gathers his gun back up off the floor.

"Come back tonight," Furiosa says in an easy dismissal, "We'll talk."

He raises his eyebrows in pointed disbelief at her but she holds her ground firmly, expression steady. Max relents with a nod, "Tonight."

He retreats to the abandoned building across the way he's been squatting in for the job, watches with absolutely no surprise as Furiosa hastily leaves the wrecked motel room for a pair of dismayed housekeepers to find. When it's clear she won't be returning Max packs up his kit, erases the traces of his presence well enough that no one will look twice, and takes the long way back to his current apartment.

. 

A bit more than a week later and Max has had two other jobs go his way. Both were even legal in addition to being simple open-and-shut, which is always something he appreciates.

His door's already unlocked when he gets home after picking up what passes for groceries in his life, telltale scratches from a lock-pick marring the brass of the lock. Max has made more than a few enemies in his line of work and he braces himself for any number of them to be lying in wait, only regretting that he hadn't thought a trip to the store warranted carrying a gun with him.

It's a surprise to see, of all the people it could be, Furiosa sitting on his ratty couch illuminated by the lamp he always keeps burning, gun aimed square at his chest. She's finally dressed in clean clothes, looks like she might have slept within the last day- if it wasn't for the gun pointed his way Max thinks he might have been relieved to see the change.

"Get down, to your knees," she says in an evenly commanding tone. He shuts the door behind him without taking his eyes off the threat of her gun, not eager to get anyone else involved no matter the outcome of this.

Max only complies with her request when she twitches the gun just enough to make it clear that she's not playing around, finger slipping off the guard and onto the actual trigger. The wood floor is hard and unforgiving under his bad knee, and he regrets not only the lack of a gun in his hand but also that he'd thought just the soft fabric brace was all he would need for the day instead of his proper full mechanical one.

"It's a crime to impersonate a cop," Furiosa says.

He shrugs in answer. It's probably the least of his offenses by this point and it's a pretty poor start if she wants to intimidate him.

"You said you were interested in taking Joe down," she says, gun not wavering in the slightest, "So talk."

Max doesn't have any specific plan, has mostly been trying to stop himself from thinking about it at all once it was clear that she'd fled. "There's a price on your head," he says to start, even though it's information he's sure she knows. Sure enough she looks unimpressed.

"He doesn't know I've skipped out," Max continues, thinking out loud as the beginnings of a plan slowly coalesces in his mind. He's not actually sure if it's true- he'd ditched the job's burner phone so he hasn't been in contact, but no one's shown up to demand he repay his up-front fee or bust his skull in yet.

Furiosa stares him down steadily, expression giving no clue as to what she's thinking.

"I can get you in, then," he says with a vague hand gesture, "let you, ah, tie up loose ends." He would have said he'd kill the old man himself, but he's pretty sure by the way she fights and handles a gun that she'd be willing to do it herself. Eager even, if some of the hints he'd turned up in his research prove to have any truth to them.

"Having Furi play bait?" a strange woman's voice rings out and Max jumps in place, caught utterly off guard to her presence. He jerks his gaze around and sees a woman in dark clothing to match her long black hair leaning up against the doorway to his bedroom, pistol holstered but clearly within easy reach where it glints on her hip. "That's hardly a plan at all."

"Find anything?" Furiosa asks her, ignoring her statement and Max's at the same time.

"He's clean," the woman says. She wrinkles her nose and reconsiders, "Well, he's not one of Joe's anyway. I don't think anything in this dump qualifies as ‘clean'."

Max shifts uneasily on the floor, knee aching from the pressure of staying down on it, wondering if she'd really gone through his entire flat. Furiosa nods, and finally lowers the gun away from pointing at his chest.

"Get up," she says. "We've a lot to discuss."


End file.
